Claiming the word ‘writer’ for yourself can be a big step. You may have been writing all your life but do you actually call yourself a writer?

Know Thyself was inscribed on the ancient Greek temple of Apollo at Delphi. People would go there to seek knowledge of the future or to find revelation about themselves. The words were a reminder that the first step to truth is to look inside.

Fundamentally, writers write, they put words onto a page or screen. But there are other aspects to writers. Do you recognize yourself in these traits?

1 We are loners

Writing is a solitary art. Even writers who collaborate create their pieces separately and knit them together later. We are not naturally team players. To be a happy writer is to enjoy solitude for creation. Writers are often introverts in the sense that they are energized by time alone with their minds. They may love being with people but it tires and drains them. I spent many years thinking I needed to be a team player, that it was essential to being a rounded person. Then I did the Myers Briggs test and found that introversion is just a natural state for some of us and certainly more dominant in writers.

2 We want recognition

Writers have egos and our desire to see our words in print or type stems from this need to be recognized. We want the six figure book deal. We want to be on Oprah or the New York Times bestseller list. We want to write words that change people’s lives. We want to be read. For all that to happen, our writing needs to be out there in the world.

3 We are scared and doubt ourselves

We want people to read our words but at the same time, we fear criticism and negative reaction. We compare ourselves to others and we often come up short. We doubt that we are original or that people will even want to read our words. We worry that we have opened ourselves up too much to the world, and then we fret because we haven’t been truthful enough.

4 We are deeply creative but sometimes forget this

When I was working as a corporate IT consultant, I found my creative side withering and dying from lack of exercise. I wanted to write a novel but I couldn’t imagine even starting one. I didn’t believe I could find that creativity in myself. So I started saying an affirmation on the daily commute. ‘I am creative, I am an author’. I said that over and over, and gradually I began to explore ideas and start to write. Four years later, I have two novels available on the biggest bookstore in the world. Although we may spend years in the wilderness, we can resurrect that creativity.

5 We know execution matters

Ideas are abundant. They swirl in the air about us and we pluck them down. We form them into finished works. People talk to us about the ideas they have, for this book or that story, but they don’t execute on the idea. We write, and we finish what we started.

6 We are always improving

Writers are readers. We learn from others by their words and we constantly try to improve our own ways of expression. We take courses on how to improve our writing. Sometimes we spend more time on reading books about writing than we spend actually getting white on black. We are obsessed with understanding why this works and why that is successful and we put what we learn into practice.

7 We know there are dark places within

Inside us are memories, emotions and an imagination that runs deep. We go there to tap into the experiences that make our writing resonate. Sometimes what emerges may be violent or horrific, resonant in truth and raw in emotion. We write with the knowledge that most people feel these things but they don’t admit to themselves that they exist. We have the ability and the strength to write those words without apology.

Do you agree that these are truths about writers? Are there any more?

Joanna Penn is the author of thriller novels Pentecost and Prophecy. Her site TheCreativePenn.com helps people write, publish and market their books and has been voted one of the Top 10 Blogs for writers 2 years running. Follow Joanna on Twitter @thecreativepenn

Agreed. I fit all seven descriptions. “We are loners” is validation. It’s okay that even though my friends are very social people, it’s okay to want to stay holed up in my little house in the woods and not leave.

This effortlessly strolls into my reads-about-writing hall of fame. You have brilliantly delineated the minds of all of us who dare to give thoughts and ideas shape in the form of words. In my life of writing, I have come to appreciate everything that happens to me– the good, the bad, and the ugly. Everything becomes fodder for my works, and out of the seething cauldron of the emotions these experiences bring, creativity oozes out. I really love how you put this simply, “…there are dark places within.” Remarkable stuff; thank you.

It is a gift when someone puts into words what another feels and hasn’t yet found a way to express it. Perhaps that is another thing writers have in common or hope to. Your words did that for me. Thank you

All very true, which is odd because I usually hate being alone, unless I’m writing. I know all too well that emotions run deep and when they come out the words flow, but they are not always kind and flowery, but that’s when I’m at my best. Now if only I could command my emotions at will…

What an awesome article that couldn’t have been more timely. Thanks for pushing my truths to the surface and letting me freely acknowledge them…rather than just wondering….and wandering. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

You have described me so well. Quite a revelation because it seems to show that I have all these characteristics so I can justly call myself a writer!
I shall pass this on to my writing and blogging friends.
Thank you for making my day!

How unusual yet true that writers struggle to get a grip on who they are and why they write. Your “dark space” is key, I reckon. Another “dark truth” to consider is this: we write to bring our protagonists to “moments of truth”, which are “transcendental moments”. My 25 years of studying “story” has led me to believe that readers read and writers write in response to the evolutionary impulse latent in all of us. When a character undergoes a radical change in their belief system, they evolve somewhat. Even the vicarious experience of reading may accomplish this. It’s just an idea. What say ye?

I’d like to think that reading a story can change a life as much as reading self-help or other books that intend to effect change. My protagonist struggles on the edge of spirituality, as I myself do. There is much truth in what we write, even if it is just on a personal level.

An excellent post – I am always interested in what makes the writers I work with tick, and of course a lot of this is also true of editors, especially if we write as well, and even if it’s not fiction that we write!

Sometimes it worries me that I can worm my way into the mind of someone else and write things for them, *as* them – but maybe that’s just an extension of the dark places and something we can all do …

These are all poignant and true. I found myself studying #3 the most, actually, for it’s definitely true of me. I wrote a lot in high school, but never considered that what I wrote was good enough to be published. If it weren’t for my brother, who found my writings (inculding a full-length novel) and believed in me, I probably wouldn’t have ever been published. I still fight the doubt, but having people around (even though I am an introvert) who believe in me helps a lot.

We definitely all suffer this Brittany – and it doesn’t stop – we have to keep finding that strength and keep putting it out there. Blogging is actually really helpful for increasing your courage in writing. It’s a practice that you have to do consistently and I am very honest with sharing the journey. Keep fighting the doubt!

Agree, for sure.
Your content is always insightful and helpful, Joanna.
My difficult is being hard on my characters to provide enough conflict.

By the way, I just finished your novel Prophecy last eve late. I enjoyed both that one and Pentecost. Your ideas are brilliant and intriguing, not to mention rather contemporary concerns too. You must have done a mountain of research to be able to be so detailed and realistic, which seems evident from your suggested reading at the end.

What I wonder about is your research technique, especially how you located that reading material that helped you!

Hi Bill, I’m so glad you enjoyed the books. I actually have degrees in psychology and also theology so much of what I use in my fiction is already somewhere in my head. I first studied Stanley Milgram and obedience way back in the 90s when still at school – so I’ve been thinking about it that long. The God Helmet is also something I studied in depth as part of my psychology degree. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin changed the direction of my life.
So I take ideas that have lain with me a long time and then use them as the basis of a story. I research widely around the topics on the internet and also by reading more books. Kind of an archaeological research technique.
Thanks for your support.

All of it is so very true. I am a loner, have always been. I’ve never understood why my family and friends couldn’t understand that I’d rather read a book than go outside. I’d rather close my eyes and conjure stories. I’d rather sit in library for hours finishing that last scene before they kick me out. Other writers understand, but the ones that claim to love me don’t.

That’s great Marcie. I don’t mean an introvert has to be shy, just that we draw energy from being alone. I was a member of National Speaker’s Association and do quite a bit of public speaking, which I really enjoy. However, I need at least a full day to recover my energy afterwards. I’m glad you found Toastmasters useful. I think all successful writers need to be able to speak and read their work confidently.

You certainly made me feel like part of the club! Wow, didn’t realize I had all the “credentials,” ;-). It felt encouraging, in a way. And yet, the part I struggle with the most is your first question: “Do you call yourself a writer?” I still have a hard time doing this, and when I am able to, it feels like a victory. Or else like I’m revealing a part of myself I’ve kept hidden for a long time. Thank you for this!

Hi Monica, it took me several years as well and I had to start saying it as an affirmation “I am an author, I am creative”. I couldn’t say that out loud at first. So maybe have a little mantra and keep saying it until you can shout it from the rooftops!

Excellent post, as always, Joanna. I relate so much to your #1. I too spent years trying to fit myself into the “team player” mold & it didn’t work. I’m a loner, thank you very much. I enjoy people & I especially enjoy hearing their stories. But I need significant amounts of alone time.
I suspect all creatives are the same. I wonder now about what is happening to creativity worldwide with so much of a shift to “collaboration” and teams?

I struggled to be a team player in the corporate world, working much better alone on self-directed projects. I had a couple of managers who understood this towards the end. Now I’m very happy to spend most of my time alone during the day – my husband is also an introvert – so happy as clams!

I’m a recovering #1, and I feel so validated reading this. It’s sad that introversion is viewed as a negative in this hyper-social world we live in.

Anybody who lives with, works with or loves a writer needs to read this. It describes a lot of my own *ahem* quirks and bouts of mania and episodes of despair — things that are just too hard to explain to my, bless their hearts, friends and loved ones who don’t write. Thanks for sharing this. – S

Wow, I’m totally agreeing with everything up there!
I loved how you described the introvert part. Its very true. Though I’m quite happy being alone, I also love my friends. But I always find myself quite exhausted after “hang out time”.

And defiantly agreeing on the forgetting our creativeness. Sometimes, if I’ve been lazy and haven’t written in a couple weeks and/or school’s being catching up on me, I find myself losing the desire to write. This leads to doubting I can create anything, and thus going into a “creative depression” hehe.
But sometimes just reading a good book or doodling helps But especially reading 😉

Hi Brian, I’m sure you realize that the list is not exhaustive – you’re clearly a hardworking pro writer who has established his career already. I’m certainly not saying that you have to be all these things to be a writer – or that many writers aren’t completely different. It’s just a point of view.
All the best with your book launch!

Joanna, this is one of the best articles I’ve ever read – every word not only resonates, it hits true and deep.

Although I’ve been a writer all my life I only started taking it seriously a few years ago, and at first I was zipping the stories out, (though most that got finished were flash or short shorts, several longer shorts and novels started and then just sat there). I’m still writing and producing those shorts when I can, but I’m currently in that place of exploration that scares me – starting to realize things that have happened in my life that horrify me to say the least. But, being that loner, (and it helps to work the day job from home), I’m on a positive plane to keep on exploring, discoveries be damned. Oddly, I’m enjoying every minute.

I feel like you read my diary! Loner? Check! Self-doubt? Yup… and on and on. Thank you for making me feel like less of a freak!

I’m very warm, friendly and outgoing, but I find after a few hours at a party or gathering I’ve had enough – it’s too much. I need to just be alone. Others don’t always understand and try to cajole me into being more social. But I’m happy! Glad it’s not that I’m defective, I’m just a writer. Well, I suppose you could say that in itself is an issue

Yes, I’m the same. I have a party persona, fuelled by alcohol usually – which I really enjoy and certainly abused in my 20s but now I feel I can be my true self and I’m fine with that! (I still like to party occasionally!)

I think this understanding can change people’s lives. I still hear people saying they can’t write because it doesn’t come out fully formed – but nothing does – and external editing is also a critical part of the process.

Oh my God! I nodded and laughed through every one of them because this is all soo ME!
I feel like reading this again, as it’s not often I read about myself to the point as I just did.
I’ve added you to my blogroll.
Thank you for this post!
Love, Aina

I don’t know that I’d call myself a loner. I do enjoy being part of the world and out in it. That being said, I think we need space (at least mentally) to work, and when there’s a lot going on we may have a tendency to retreat. I find that by volunteering outside of freelancing, I can still get that feeling of having co-workers.

I also need people around sometimes. I’d go crazy at my desk all the time. I actually go to the London Library 3 times a week for my fiction writing days. It’s a private member’s library and a great working environment – surrounded by other pro writers!

Someone’s been peeking in my window! Wow, this article is bang on. I also think writers have a connection to something bigger than themselves, whether they be spiritual or not. Something moves us. It’s not just the muscles in our hands. It’s a deep calling to breathe life through words and a desire to send those words to the wind and see where they land.

And if you are like me, writers have a love/hate relationship with structure — the very structure that will free our creativity. I know it and yet fight it. Why oh why…

As a loner who also loves company and can hold a crowd, and someone who seeks recognition but then often doesn’t trust or believe it when he gets it, I’d also say that writers are full of contradictions! (Or do I just need counselling…?) 😀

Too true. Wanting recognition, but hiding. Creative, but frozen with self-editing fear. I guess the bottom line it we keep doing it… we have to. So many stories to tell and the words inside won’t let us rest.

Thanks for the post, read on a day when I was wondering just how well I know myself and why I do what I do (write). They all resonated with me. I particularly like #4, something I constantly need to remind myself, especially on the days when everything I write seems to ‘not work’.

I like what Alison Lester (Australian children’s author) has to say on what you need to be a writer: You need to be imaginative and persistent. A brilliant summing up.

We write to process. Putting things down on a screen or page helps us reflect, assess, make sense of the world and the things that are going on around us. Writing lets us contemplate. Often when we write it’s not the output which is important; it is the process. We prosper personally when we trust the system and write write write.

Thanks David.
I agree with you on the process in terms of my own personal writing. I have reams of journals for my private creative life but writing for books means I think the output is also important – if that is your goal anyway.

I like your point (1) about writers being loners and validating yourself with the Myers–Briggs test. Certainly when I was at school, far too much emphasis was placed on training us all to become “team players”; those who wouldn’t/couldn’t play were left feeling like failures. I wonder if that is still the case today? There is room in the world for all types!

Great article, Joanna — thanks for sharing! I shared it on Facebook with writer friends, and it definitely resonated. In fact, one friend who is also an artist, felt it really applied to all creatives.

I would agree with most of these, or certainly see many of these traits in myself. Does that mean I’m a writer? I hope so.

Although I’m trying to become less of a loner these days.

I once had a counselor say, “Jared, your mind is a dangerous place. If you go in there, don’t stay long and be sure to take a friend.” I’d say I like to think “less” the older I get. More doing and being. I guess maybe the main difference these days is I’m actually surrounded by people that I can bounce things off of. For the majority of my life I treated loneliness with isolation.

Becoming emotionally connected with self has allowed me to tap into experiences at a more emotional level and then try and share them through writing. Just like sharing in a support group, we find that no matter how honest and unique we think we are, many others feel something similar.

Thanks Jared. I don’t equate being alone with loneliness, personally. It’s how I need to be to recharge my batteries. We’re all different! I also have friends and mentors – but time in one’s head is definitely precious.

I think you really nailed it with this article. But you did invite us to suggest others, so here is mine:

Writers are truth seekers and I think more than anything that is what drives us – that is what fuels our passion. The desire to find the truth, whether it is the truth of nature, love, man, or a perfect chocolate sundae that desire to learn, know and discover the truth about things is a magnificent force.

Thanks – I agree with that – although sometimes a story isn’t about truth, just about an adventure or a great experience. It doesn’t all have to mean something – entertainment is worthy for its own sake.

Joanna… for the sake of argument, I want to suggest that the truth of stories is “why we read”. Regardless of genre. And that the “meaning” isn’t any kind of philosophical concoction but rather the protagonist’s transition from not-knowing to knowing, vicariously experienced by the reader. Our lives have “meaning” in so far as we are able to participate in our own evolution. All stories contain such “growing up” moments. Adventures and comedies no less than dramas. I know this may sound kinda heady, but if you want to explore any of this further, I have a free eBook coming out next week that tries to make sense of these ideas. It’s called STORY STRUCTURE TO DIE FOR. I’d love it if you took a look and let me know what you think. Cheers.

Thanks for this article, Joanna. So true and it sure does help to be reminded of these characteristics every once in a while. I struggle a lot since I’m a very newbie. So, this really helps to put things in perspective. Thanks again!

I teach at the Loft Literary Center and in 20+ years, I’ve worked with thousands of writers. In one class, the topic of the Meyers-Briggs comes up and I’ve noticed that a majority of my students are INFPs, which is supposed to be the rarest type in the general population. So I think there’s a lot of truth in the statement that writers are loners. But I’ve also known a lot of excellent writers who are extraverts — they bring a different skill set and different challenges to writing.

These are generalizations, and though are often true, aren’t always. I know people who buck certain of these trends (I know writers who are definitely not loners, but are some of the most social people!). I personally do not write for recognition. I’d love to get paid and part of being paid is being well known, but I’d just as soon write anonymously than go through all that.

Just finished rereading the post, Joanna, and was reminded of how I struggled to convince myself that I was a writer. Every night before sleeping, I would say to myself, out loud, “I am a writer. I AM a writer. I am a WRITER, etc.” … until I believed it. I did this because on my rounds, knocking on doors to get writing work from film producers, I couldn’t pitch properly unless I was coming from a place of belief in myself. When I believed it, I discovered that others did too. It’s a transmission at a subtle level. Weird, huh?

Such a comforting and resonating article. I had never recognised myself an introvert, even after I did a Myers Briggs test and came out as INTJ. In a ‘must network’ world, I thought, for many years, introversion was a bad thing. It’s only in the last year or so, that I’ve thought, ‘well this is just who I am’ and accepted being an introvert is OK.

And as an IT Professional for 15+ years, my creative side – the word-loving, poetry-exploring, book-devouring, journaling side – has got a bit lost. Over the last year, I’ve taked baby steps to try and find it again. To shake it awake. I know its there somewhere! One day I want to see my name in print, alongside something I have written!

So perfectly put into words. I’m glad to see that being a loner can be a good thing. I long for the “quiet” moments alone with music in the background that inspires the thoughts I wish to evoke in my writings.

I’ve rediscovered the comfort of writing and taking the time to listen to my thoughts and to finally write them down…at which point #3 and #7 come into play.

No truer words were spoken. I fit all those things, not that I like it, but it is the way it is. Actually, I think I do like it. I’m comfortable with myself. I do like company, but it’s nice to be alone with one’s own thoughts and the time to be creative with them.

Thank you for this article, I came across it in my Paper.li called Writing it Out. I am a student of Creative Writing, and everything you said really hit home with me. I never thought of myself as having an ego, but when I realized what I was doing with my blogs and writings, it dawned on me that you were right. Incredible!!
Thanks again for the honesty